Ah, yes. It's that time of the month. No, not that one, piggish and/or sensitive menfolk. The one where I make excuses for the long stretches of not doing anything. I know. You're so disappointed.

It's not that I don't care, people. Truly, I love you more than my own hypothetical alien spawn. Yo.

It's just that, in the summertime, kids, while I have all the time the American education system allots, I have neither the patience, energy, or incentive to do jack shit about it. During the year, us young folk bitch about all the amazing shit we're gonna do when summer comes around, because we're not yet affected by what I assume in the summerless, soulless, tax-and-health-insurance-filled world of adulthood. Seriously, I don't envy you fuckers. No summer vacation? Three days off in the year? Fucking cubicles?

ANYWAYS. I have some things to say while I'm here.

1) Darren Criss? The one all you assholes have been drooling over? You don't know. You don't know SHIT. Because if you did know shit, you'd know noto credit him as Glee's Magical Homosexual Blaine Whatshisface. You'd know that he was, in fact, Harry Freakin' Potter.

2) The Great White Dopeness himself as bestowed upon me the honor of WINNA in his recent contest. Of course, I deserved it.

3) I won't be here for the better part of next month, due to Seattle shit I don't expect you children to understand.

-It was bound to happen. A movie was sure to show up that made me shake my head towards my previous defenses of Richard Kelly. Because he doesn't have the monopoly on mind-fuck movies. It's possible to do it right, people.

-Because this? This is three different realities. Things happen that are scary, but then they're funny, and not absurd funny, funny like it's not taking itself too seriously. Nobody makes obscure, unexplained comments about death. Everything gets explained in some form or another, but there's still room for discussion. The performances are amazeballs, including Ryan Reynolds, who nobody can accuse of being a bad actor, but a very, very bland one (but not here!), Melissa McCarthy (who's really underrated as a straight-up dramatic actress), and Hope Davis (yay).

-And yet, the normal interactions aren't unsettling, like David Lynch.

You see, my loves, my darlings, lights of my life, whenever I come into a dilemma, and the general internet proves to be maddeningly unhelpful, I turn to you, my most trusted audience. Especially you. You're my favorite.

So in this dilemma, I'm flying the notoriously fuck-you airline Continental. Now, I haven't flown since before the company's merger with United, which, from what I hear, is Armegeddon with a bathroom. The problem is, I can't find any in-flight information.

So what I want to know, my dears, is, if you have flown this particular airline, coach, on a roughly 5 hour flight, at around 9 in the morning (Eastern time), what did you or did you not have to pay for? Like, was the food free, was there coffee, did you need a credit card for the luxury of Two and a Half Men reruns, etc. What I'm asking you is do I've got to spend five hours twiddling my thumbs, entertainmentless, coffeeless, hopeless?

Well, Andrew has made hisself a blogathon in light of the impending Emmy nominations. You can find some of that shit here, and I'm incredibly early on this, I a, but fuck it, I'll be gone most of August, I can't keep up.

ANYWAY. What's my favorite episode of the past TV season?

Community. "Paradigms of Human Memory". Look into the eyes of the abyss. Later.

-This is a movie where the characters break the fourth wall to argue about who, exactly, is the main character. Technically, I should love it with all my heart. It's among the handful of movies I knew as a 13-year-old just discovering Wikipedia, by cast and subject matter rather than first-hand knowledge (with availability like it was at the time). It was among the ones that I would defend to the death rather than go out and try to find a copy of somewhere in the back of Blockbuster.

-In said argument, between Macauley Culkin's Michael Alig and Seth Green's James St. James, I wish Green had won. Only a narrative presence in the beginning and end, he is a much more interesting protaganist than Culkin, who's Alig is a fey, obnoxious little twit, cheerfully trying to break into the club scene before succeeding into an even more aggravatingly bright world of excess and coke. Doing the most awkward impression of a quasi-drag queen, Culkin is either incredibly good at portraying the dead-eyed, Bret Easton Ellis-ish monotony of the club kid scene, or embarassingly bad at showing the fabulous descent of the same.

-Meanwhile, Green, while initially going about the same stiff showboating as Culkin, playing his mentor-turned-sidekick, is, um, much better. Wry, the only truly entertaining one in the bunch.

-The movie is shot in digital, making it ugly and empty and hyper-observant of every pimply chin and Cheeto-stained carpet. Which I guess makes sense, if it's really trying to make its entire universe as flat and baffling as possible.

-The rest of the acting ranges from non-existant (Chloe Sevigny) to stiff (guy from My So-Called Life) to fine, I guess (Wilmer Valderama).

-It's extremely unpleasant if you're looking for a movie without subtitles for once (like me), possibly a gritty look at the precious little downfall of The Factory's wannabe-second-comers, possibly just an ironic way to pass the time and mock some stiff dialogue. Go ahead, it could've been worse.

-This is one of those movies where a bunch of pretty, rich people spend most of their time making deep, mumbled declarations of loneliness, regret, and misery. It would be insufferably twee if it weren't for the charisma of the actors (Christopher Plummer, especially, makes you rue all the parts he never took, because you know those movies might've been twice as amazing as they were).

-Was I the only one baffled at why the dog kept asking Ewan McGregor if they were married yet?

-Speaking of which, him, that dog, and Melanie Laurent make the world's most motherfucking adorable little unit. It's not fair. It's just not fair.

-Well, the only character who's plight I understood, if not, per se, got, was Christopher Plummer's young, exuberent lover, played by Goran Višnjić. Throughout the movie, he keeps asking Ewan McGregor if "it's because [he's] gay" (for no particular reason in the beginning, then for a pretty good reason near the end, but never anything nefarious), and when visiting Plummer in the hospital, he jumps at the nurse justifying his right to be there before she even says anything. This particular aspect, not really any of the character's other, more important emotional points, is what stood out to me in a movie dominated by people with too many empty relationships. Because I imagine being openly gay in a world that only started, if not embracing, at least tolerating such a thing would leave one a tad paranoid, weary, etc.

Come to think of it, I've never seen a Polish movie before. Yay new horizons!

-Nonetheless, from my 21st century point of view, the strangers-meet-tension-slash-madness-ensues bit is fucking old.

-And what is it with low budget sixties movies and that--you know what? I just realized that I equate this style of camerawork with Night of the Living Dead (the original, for I know no other), specifically, when the zombies are breaking through the window for the billionth fucking time, and Ben and whatshisface, Jim the Geriatric High Schooler, Brad?, whatever, are knocking their hands, and for some reason, the curiously silent, paper mache/clay way the fingers fall apart just doesn't sit right with me. And now you know.

-Oh, how sorry I am, all five of you, that I can't write a review anymore, how dreadfully dreadful I feel. Except not really, because who's even reading this, anyway?

-Polish is one of those languages I just don't like listening to. To my lonesome American ears it's in the Scandinavian school of sounding like a rewinding tape. Also, there's a bunch of Polish kids I go to school with, and they're a bunch of dicks, so take that as you will.

-Extremely unlikeable protaganists, these people. Well acted, I should assume, but unpleasent.

despite many movies watched, and despite plenty of time to compose so many thoughtful tidbits on this and that and those, these can't be done, it simply cannot be helped. So here's the death of Cypher, who never stood a chance: